With an earlier breakfast, I left the Bear Hotel @8:15am. Starting at the summit of the K&A canal from Devizes Wharf meant that it would be downhill to the end, except that most of that came in the first 2 miles as I dropped 72m passing 16 locks as part of the spectacular Caen flight, the longest continuous straight flight of locks in the country (and part of the 29 locks in the Devizes flight). They each have side pounds, holding a million gallons of water. And then at the bottom there were 208 solar panels apparently, (I didn’t count them) in a field powering a pumping station to transfer water back up to the summit pound.

It was another lovely spring morning with plenty of sunshine. This section of the canal was far more popular than the eastern section never being out of sight of moored boats.

Just before the road bridge at Semington there was a bricked up junction to the old Wiltshire and Berkshire canal to Abingdon which was closed in 1914 and is now being revived in stages around all the intervening development and legislation. I don’t think that I’ll be running that in my lifetime.

As expected, consecutive day’s running would always be hard work and I just about managed 4mph pace on stony towpaths to the first stop of the day at Bradford-on-Avon at 12 miles. However after a coffee and rest, I picked up the pace through the wooded section that lined the canal past the Avoncliffe Aqueduct and onto the Dundas Aqueduct, impressive structures built over the River Avon.

That then left @ 5miles to Bath, during which the density of houseboats gradually increased. After passing through two short tunnels and some very elaborate bridges, in keeping with what you’d expecting Bath, I then had a late and much needed Meal Deal lunch on the outskirts.

With a spectacular backdrop to the final few locks, I then took a touristy stroll down to the junction with the River Avon, passing the second deepest lock in the UK at 18 feet.

The next 2.5 miles out of Bath were on tarmac’d path and hard on my feet. Then crossing sides at Newbridge Road, for the final 2.5 miles to Saltford, the bone dry ground was also a hard on my feet, but better than the muddy conditions that had obviously occurred previously judging by the mountain bike ruts and dips (we need to be careful about what we wish for…).

So after 26.5 miles I arrived at my accommodation @3:45pm just before a heavy shower. While the pace was slow, today (and tomorrow) was about building up strength in my legs for when I have to do 4 times the distance. And in previous years I have done this training on known routes in the southeast, so being in new scenery in Berkshire, Wiltshire and Avon is just fantastic and summed up in the following sign I saw coming into Bath.